The Space Between
by yellowcottondresses
Summary: Gunnar had been here before - a cold winter night, staring death in the face, the barrel of a darkness he didn't think had any end. Takes place during 2x11, "I'll Keep Climbing". Will/Gunnar, ONESHOT.


**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Of course the last episode left me with major Will/Gunnar bro-feels. Of course I had to write them down. **

**I don't own Nashville, or anything affiliated. **

**I.**

The wind felt different, up here.

Maybe it was touchy-feely, quasi-mystical bullshit, like the titles of books from the grocery store check-out. Maybe it was the sprawling endlessness of the starry mountain sky going to his head, with no city lights or cars or houses glowing with space heaters and burning bulbs. Whatever it was, the wind really DID feel different, all the way up here. Crisper, cleaner, the smell of wood and old pine and winter ground.

It felt easier to breathe up here – like he'd been a hamster on a wheel without knowing it, and now he really felt like he could open his jaws, feel the cold, free air.

No wonder Will had come here, when there was nowhere else to go.

Gunnar shifted in the driver's seat, knocking the gear shift with his knees in the process. He swore, startling himself in the midnight mountain silence.

The path that led to Will's campsite was pitch-dark, and looked for all the world like the wide, gaping mouth of a nightmare. The trees swayed and clack-click-clicked like teeth chattering hungrily in the cold, and the entrance to the blackness sprawled from the roots and underbrush like a dark, lapping tongue. Nothing had moved in or out since Gunnar had made his way to the truck, stuck the keys in the ignition to head home to Zoey, then sat there for two minutes before reclining the seat back and staring at the ceiling, hands folded over his eyes.

Every fifteen seconds or so, he wanted to run back and check on Will, but just barely contained himself. The guy had looked so exhausted, and he'd been sound asleep by the time Gunnar finally got up to put out the dying fire and leave. He didn't want to wake him by crashing through the darkness with a flashlight and footsteps growing heavy with panic that increased with every stride.

So he tried to sleep instead. But every time he did he kept waking up to vivid dreams – the kind he hadn't had since right after Jason died. Dreams where it was Deacon's birthday and he was at the morgue again, the night was freezing cold and the cops stood by him with impassive faces as they pulled back the sheet and he saw his brother's broken, cold body…

Except it wasn't Jason this time, it was Will. His eyes open and sightless, covered in blood and torn apart so badly that Gunnar wouldn't have recognized him if those eyes hadn't been staring up at him, looking at him with that accusingly blank stare, asking why, why did Gunnar leave him, why did he have to let him go, shut him out and let him die like he meant nothing to him…

And then the body switched to Jason, his face battered beyond recognition except for the tattoos on his chest, and then it was Will again, obliviated by the rush of cold, unforgiving steel, and both of them looked at Gunnar with the same expression of helpless wonder on their faces, wondering why Gunnar would abandon them when they needed him the most.

And then he woke up in a cold sweat, a sound shaking the frigid silence in his truck and scaring him before he realized he was the one making that noise, not quite a scream and not quite a sob, and he hit his head on the roof and the dark mountainside spun for a moment, trees reaching for him outside the frosted windows like cold, dead arms, like the limbs on the morgue slab that reached for him but couldn't reach out and touch him because Gunnar had left them, pushed them away, and look at what had happened.

Jason had been his constant before Gunnar even cut his first tooth – the only person in his life Gunnar ever believed in completely. And when his big brother needed help, he'd abandoned him. Did what Jason had never, in their whole lives, done to him.

And Will…well. Will had taken the strongest link they'd ever had – music –and with a few chords at the stockholder's showcase, made sure they'd never be able to really trust each other again. Gunnar was the keeper of Will's biggest secret, and then Will went behind his back and sold him out to get ahead. Turned everything between them into a faulty land mine, at the very least.

Used to be, Jason was always an arm's length away from his little brother, and Will could tell Gunnar anything. And now both could disappear from his life, almost like they'd never existed. And Gunnar had refused to look for one, and hadn't even bothered to notice the other was gone.

Then the cops showed up at the Bluebird, that icy January night. And if Brent hadn't come looking, Gunnar tried not to wonder how long it would have taken him to finally end up here, sleeping under the stars of Echo Ridge, staring death in the face on one more cold winter night that didn't seem like it would ever end. He didn't want to think about how Brent showing up at that doorstep was the reason Gunnar didn't let Will stay gone in the darkness, devouring him like it had taken Jason.

Like Gunnar had _let_ that darkness take Jason.

And to think: the whole time he'd been ignoring Jason's calls from payphones and disposable cells, the entire time he'd driven around this godforsaken mountainside, all he could think about was how _they_ had left _him_.

**II.**

He had to turn the truck on because it was too cold, and even though he hated to waste the gas he needed the warmth of his shitty old heater too much. So he put his freezing hands right in front of the vents, holding them there until his fingers started to tingle again. When they felt warm, he put them to his face, resting his palms on his cold cheeks, then his forehead, then over his tired eyes.

They didn't get any signal on the mountaintop, so there was no radio. But he had a CD in the stereo, a mix of songs he'd burned from Zoey's laptop. He put it on, switching through a few of the louder tracks until he found a scratchy recording of a woman with a voice that sounded like gold morning light, singing "Tennessee Waltz". He turned the volume up and laid back, as her voice settled gently over him like a blanket, or a lullaby.

His grandmother used to have the Patsy Cline version of this song on an old forty-five, and she used to play it all the time when he was little. Even though he was forbidden to touch Memaw's records or her record player, sometimes when she worked late and Jason was with friends or stuck in detention after school, Gunnar would be alone in the house for hours, and he'd carefully take out the Patsy record and turn the volume down low, lying down on the braided rug on the living room floor. He'd turn his palms up towards the ceiling and close his eyes, just listening to the music. Sometimes it would make him feel like he was floating away, and he'd have to dig his heels into the hardwood, just to remind himself he was tethered to the earth.

Lying flat on his back in the all-the-way reclined driver's seat, Gunnar could almost feel the hard, scratchy surface of his grandmother's braided rug. He gripped the edges of the seat and closed his eyes, and the mysterious woman sang about how her sweetheart was stolen away. How she always remembered that night.

The song clicked off with one last mournful note, and there was the soft static as one song changed to the next. It was the familiar pause, when one ending lead into another beginning. The space between melodies, like the pause between one breath to the next.

**III.**

He listened to "Tennessee Waltz" two more times before the heater's artificial air started to suffocate him.. He might have dozed off for a minute or two, but even in those short bursts of sleep he couldn't get away from the image of Jason's body on that morgue slab, and the memory of the night Will had taken him to the tracks, and how both times he should have known better but he didn't, and now look where they all were.

He switched off the radio. Stepped out of the truck to suck in some fresh air, then shut the door behind him and started walking down the path back towards Will's campsite

Before he hit the trail he passed Will's bike, still parked at the edge of the woods. Gunnar touched the handlebar and remembered the first time he'd driven this; how Will had let him be the first person to ride it.

He remembered that reckless feeling he'd had when he swung on for the first time, breathless with the danger and thrill of it all. The roar of the wind, and the rush of adrenaline as he'd driven away from their street, the bike purring underneath him like it was alive and galloping away, taking him someplace far from their house and Scarlett's worried looks and the memory of Jason's footsteps, which he couldn't stop hearing on their cold kitchen floor.

The night moved around him, but didn't scare him. Gunnar had never been afraid of the darkness, of shadows. Even has a child, the nightmares he had were never about monsters or demons. He was never worried about things like that, mostly because Jason was always there to protect him.

It was only until Jason died that Gunnar started feeling like he couldn't control it anymore – the blackness, both inside of him and out. And even after that night, closing his eyes had been a relief, because at least _this_ type of darkness was something Gunnar could control. He wouldn't have to see the world go on without Jason if he just closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Wouldn't have to see _his_ life go on, like it had any right to when Jason would never get that chance.

At least, until he actually fell asleep, and had the nightmare of the morgue again. The one he always told Scarlett he could never remember.

He dug his hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans, wishing he'd worn something warmer when he'd come up on this damn mountain.

Will's campsite was straight ahead. Gunnar moved more slowly when he came across the clearing, not wanting his footsteps to wake him.

Except they didn't; the large shape lying on the ground didn't move, even when Gunnar stepped right to the edge of the tarp Will had laid out. He bent down so that he was close enough to hear the measured rise and fall of Will's breathing as it fogged in the freezing air. His breathing hitched a moment, and Gunnar froze, wondering if he'd woken him up. But Will just hunched further into himself and kept breathing away, his chest carefully moving in and out as he stayed in his deep, unshakeable sleep.

He was curled up in a ball, and Gunnar thought it was strange, the way it actually made his large, muscled frame look smaller. Will had a couple inches and about forty pounds on him, but he folded into the darkness like a pocket, like he could become so small that nothing could ever hurt him. Even the kind he could do to himself.

Gunnar couldn't help thinking how wrong it all was. The last time he had been in front of a fire with Will, they'd been singing together

(and if he really let himself remember that the song had been "Tough All Over", he'd probably scream, or puke, or sprint all the way back to Nashville, or punch Will in the face. Or throttle him before he ever got the chance to want to die again)

and it was so soon after Jason had died that Gunnar had wondered if he was even alive himself, and Will –

He'd been so real. So vibrant. So _alive_.

He'd come into Gunnar's life just when he was beginning to wonder if he'd died along with Jason, and that night by the fire was the first time since he saw his brother's body in the morgue that he felt like there was something inside him that was capable of coming to life.

And now, they were surrounded by another fire, and there was no music and all Will wanted was to die. It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair that the memories of those two nights would never be able to be separated, just like Gunnar couldn't think of Jason without thinking of that broken body in the morgue no matter how hard he tried to remember his brother any other way. It wasn't fair that the person who helped him feel alive again now only wanted to die. It wasn't fair Will even had to feel this way at all; that he couldn't ever just be happy like he was, doing what he wanted and being happy with whoever he wanted to be with. Wasn't fair that he couldn't just sense that crazy energy inside himself, sense it like Gunnar had the very first night they met, and let that be enough to keep him going, like it had been for Gunnar.

It wasn't fair, that people who had so much inside them to give to the world ended up dying, and everything they were just…went away.

His hands were thrown over his head, hiding himself even in deep sleep. It made Gunnar's throat brick shut to see that. It was like Will was hiding his face from the sky. Because he couldn't let it – or anything else – see him like this, see him _be_ this.

There was a sharp snap of twigs not far from their little clearing, but Gunnar wasn't worried and Will didn't move. He stayed at the edge of the tarp, ignoring the ache in his knees and the wind and his freezing fingers and toes, and just watched. Watched Will sleep, breathe, live; keep going, _live._

They'd had to cremate Jason. Gunnar couldn't afford to bury him, and he knew their grandmother wouldn't give him money even if she had it, because she'd given up on Jason long before the two of them had ended up outside that convenience store. The state of Tennessee had burned his brother's body, and they stuck it in a little brown box, given to him with the name SCOTT, J. written on the top in Sharpie, like it was a package you could Fed-Ex.

Scarlett had talked about maybe scattering his ashes back in Texas – taking a weekend drive over there, heading to a place where Gunnar thought his brother would like to be put to rest. Gunnar remembered telling her that scattering his brother's ashes on some dirt field in the middle of nowhere wasn't a fucking Spring Break roadtrip, and he'd stormed out without turning around to see her let out a sob that rattled the whole house and squeezed his heart like a fist.

_Stupid son-of-a-bitch, _he thought savagely, looking down at Will. He wanted to shove him again, hit him over and over and over, hurt him and scream at him and rage until the entire mountainside crumbled around them. Instead, his stomach and head and heart seized up until he had to look away, to suck in that freezing mountain air full of dust and stars, feel it burn him up from the inside and make his bones feel like glass. Then he watched the body on the blanket breathe in and breathe out, gentle and steady, and instead of hitting him Gunnar reached down and grabbed the edge of the sleeping bag and pulled it over Will's body, tucking it around his broad shoulders. His fingers brushed the collar of Will's fleece jacket, and he kept his hand there for a moment. Will didn't stir, but his breath fogged in the air from under the blanket. Gunnar counted the space between them, in and out, one breath after the next, trying to convince himself that Will wouldn't die if he blinked or breathed or stood up. If he looked away again, even for the blink of an eye.

He wondered what that was like. To die. To want to. He sometimes used to imagine it, after Jason. Not in the "I'm gonna really off myself" way that Will had, but more like in an abstract sense, because back then he felt like a part of him was already gone. But even right after Jason, Gunnar never actually considered trying to kill himself. Not just because he knew he could never go through with it for real, but because it would have been worse than Jason dying all over again.

Because Jason dying meant that Gunnar had something to prove. Because now his brother was never going to get a chance to turn his life around and make a shot at what should have always been his. If Gunnar had really tried to die after his brother, he would have basically shit all over Jason's memory, and Gunnar had already failed his brother too much in life to fail him again in death.

Will was right about one thing, Gunnar thought, as he finally stood and his entire body creaked in protest after squatting for so long. He didn't know what it was like, to really _want_ to die. He knew what it was like to not want to live, to feel more dead than alive, but not enough to take the step in either direction.

He turned, started walking back down the path. He needed to let Will sleep, and really, keeping them both up all night wouldn't make his friend want to talk, or stay alive, or just not want to die anymore. Whatever that next step happened to be for him, it would only happen after he'd slept through these cold and starry hours. Gunnar wouldn't have much say in whatever choice Will made, but he could let him rest, feel some semblance of peace, and stay so he wouldn't be alone anymore.

He listened to the ground crunch underneath him. Hands in his pockets, staring at the path, trying to piece it together between the criss-cross of black and moonlight.

_They'd been going to get dinner, the country station started to play a song and Will had suddenly reached over and cranked the stereo, "hey, come on, man, turn that shit down, I'm trying to drive here!" Gunnar had snapped, and Will pointed a finger at him and said, "I know you didn't just insult Steve Earle," as "Copperhead Road" started to play, and as he blew out the speakers as loud as they could go, Gunnar's protests were drowned out by Will rolling down the window and howling out the passenger side, almost leaning his entire torso out into the highway as he cheered and drummed along to the music, and when Gunnar had tried to yank him back in the truck by his t-shirt he nearly smashed into the car in front of them and after Gunnar righted the truck and Will was back inside Gunnar yelled at him to stop being such a fuckin' idiot, to which Will had muttered, "stop bein' such a damn buzzkill," and then neither of them said anything for the rest of the way there and the entire way home, and the only time Gunnar even looked over at him was when Juliette's new single came on the radio and Will, looking pained, had reached over and turned it off, and Gunnar thought, gee, must really suck to have to be reminded that you're signed with one of the biggest labels in the music business, and what a drag it must be to have to remember that you have the chance anyone would die for – _

And then Gunnar tried to stop thinking right there, had to try. Because if he stopped and let himself think he'd remember –

_Will banging on the dashboard to the drum breakdown and the way he reached his head all the way back and howled "Never come back from Copperhead ROAAAD!", sounding for all the world remarkably tuneless and completely lacking the talent to get signed by a major Nashville label, and Gunnar rolled his eyes, and he had loved this song because Jason had loved this song, and the year his brother learned to drive Jason had this tape in the piece of shit junker that he bought for a thousand bucks down at Olsen's scrap yard, and the night the keys were put in his brother's hand he took Gunnar out for the first drive and they blared this song in the cassette player as loud as the rattletrap old stereo would allow, and when the drums and guitar both blared together he and Jason had screamed along with it, and the car lurched and it felt like the entire clunker would explode as Steve Earle pounded the beat and sang about bandits and moonshine and hard knocks in life – _

He started to run.

_And whenever he listened to Steve Earle he remembered Jason singing about prison, and his grandmother's old record player and the way the rain smelled when he used the hand crank to roll his brother's windows down in that old-but-still-new truck, and screamed the lyrics along with Jason that Texas night, and now it was Will and that same song and the summer darkness, the fat gold moon that sat in the Tennessee sky like a friend, like it was put there just for them to reach out and grab, and how the shitty A/C in Gunnar's truck was barely spitting cold air and Gunnar drove around that entire summer with the windows rolled down because he'd die of heat stroke if he didn't, and whenever he and Will drove anywhere they'd always have sweat stains on the backs of their t-shirts where their shoulder blades were, looking like the marks of wings – _

And then Gunnar had to stop running, because if he didn't his chest might explode. He dropped to his knees and landed on a rock and yelped at the sharp pain but couldn't move, just leaned into the hard-packed earth and closed his eyes and pressed his face close to the yellow grass, smelling the ground beneath him, and _what if you wanted to feel alive, make something of the time you're killing_ –

And he breathed, or tried to, and closed his eyes. Could smell the campfire smoke on his clothes. When he opened his eyes again, sweat poured into them and stung, and when he looked up the moonlight nearly blinded him, poking through the pine and shadows.

He stood up. The black trees whispered. So many stars. A rustle in the underbrush made him look up, but didn't startle him.

He saw the bike, the truck. Climbed into the front seat, lay back and closed his eyes. This time, he didn't see Will or Jason, only colors. They exploding behind his closed eyes like fireworks, then dispersed into the darkness like memories.

**IV.**

Will had told him to go on ahead and not to worry, but Gunnar still waited until the bike had pulled out of the clearing before starting up the truck. He made a show of looking like he needed to find his keys, but he knew Will didn't really buy it, much more than Gunnar bought that Will really was okay to just get on a plane to Pittsburgh and go on with this day and the next like nothing had happened.

Though he figured, that had to happen. Life didn't just stop unless you made it stop, and Will had already said he couldn't anymore. And if that wasn't going to, something else would, and what else was there?

Gunnar didn't know, and didn't know if he believed Will any more than Will believed himself – about not doing that to himself, ever. But if he'd made it this far since walking in front of that train, then maybe he wasn't completely bullshitting himself, for once. Maybe this time, he was as honest as he could ever make himself be.

(Except he wouldn't answer Gunnar when he asked how he was. Changed the subject, like he always did.)

The roar of the motorbike was long gone, but it was a moment before Gunnar could make himself move. He just sat in the truck, mind gone suddenly blank, closing his eyes and rubbing his face with one hand.

He should have made Will promise again.

But he hadn't, and Gunnar had to get back to the house. Shower, get ready to meet Scarlett, and seal this deal with Kelly Clarkson. See Will one last time, even if he couldn't give Gunnar the answers he wanted.

He put the key in the ignition. The engine groaning, and the stereo came to life with it. It took a moment for him to realize why music wasn't coming out of the speakers, until he realized it was just the static that happened between one song and the next. Like a breath being taken, then released, held in and out and then in and out again.

"_The only way to truly get over death, is to tempt it a little."_

"_You stupid son-of-a-bitch; we're supposed to be dead, we should be dead!"_

"_But we're NOT!"_

The space between melodies. Holding your breath at an end –

(or a start)

– and awaiting what came next.


End file.
